[Deck] BUG Control

[razefire]

Killing wave is garbage because it gives your opponent options. No. I choose to deed your board on my terms. You don't choose. I do. Its also uneccessary. You don't more removal. This deck has ridiculous board control. Its fine as is honestly. Tweek as needed for a Meta. I have a hard time believing this deck can't handle most things. Aside from burn but whatever. If I find that burn decks are on the rise then its time to do something.

[Tom]

Agreed, Killing Wave is less than garbage. Probably not even playable in standard or limited, unless you have a super aggressive limited deck.

[DMel]

OK, come on, it's pretty effing good in limited. It's probably also a good, or at least fun, card in EDH.

[razefire]

Ok, but so what lol. I wish there was better non come into play tapped manlands for this deck, that would make me happy. Or some reasonable recursive flying thing that has 5 attack power.

I can feel Burn with Vexing Devil is going to be up and coming. So, I do think this deck will need a way to gain life in the sideboard, or supress red spells. Ive underestimated Burn in the past, but at bigger events youll see it. I just want to be the guy who gets killed by turn 4. I hate that it would take multiple slots to beat them. Time to dust of my playset of Chill. I remember that back when Ponza was huge. Time will tell.

[xsiva33x]

i'm building something very similar to this. in my list there bare no factories, and it's jace/deed heavier 4/4. also i have 4 stifle to slow them down since i'm using ancestral visions. i'm currently on deployment although i got all the cards sent to my buddy's place so i haven't had the opportunity to play test, is there a reason nobody has used stifle? i think it adds well to the clock for ancestral visions. thanks for any help

[Kevinliu]

Again, I still rather run blue elemental blast/hydroblast instead of chill. It's just my preference anyway to disrupt red decks.

As for stifle, what are you going to cut for them? Stifle, is mainly used as a tempo card and in a control deck tempo doesn't provide any sort of advantage especially since it doesn't have a fast clock like RUG thresh does. Sure, stifle has other uses besides countering fetches but so does spell pierce, counterspell and spell snare.

[xsiva33x]

i'm actually running stifle opposed to mishra's factory. the tempo is nice to drop a liliana or a jace and just use the 2 planeswalkers as means for kill

[Kevinliu]

Ah, how many lands are you running then? Considering, I actually don't think cutting lands for additional spells in a control deck is that great of an idea even if they add colorless. To me, I like to make my land drops every turn with this deck.

[razefire]

24-25 lands is good. Gotta hit land drops and expect to be wastelanded as well. Deck is fine. I'd say after playing against maverick piloted by my friend that its basically a joke almost. Postboard choke, so what. Spell Pierce (Adam Cai tech) can get me but that's the best we've tried. We even considered vengevine since this deck is so removal heavy. I need to play against rug. That match seems horrible between force, daze, stifle and spell Pierce plus burn. Thank goodness for discard.

[Tom]

Agreed on the land amount suggested by raze. A lot of legacy decks play 23 lands, so many people seem to assume that 23 is also correct for BUGC... It is way to little. You never want to miss a land drop, and wasteland exists. I run 25 in my list, and I still find myself getting screwed sometimes. I think 25 is alright though.

As for the RUG matchup; I think it is around 50-60% our favor if you run 4 deeds. liliana is also a star in this matchup.

[Kevinliu]

I have been running about 25 lands as well. I like having the extra tarpit in there despite of some others not being much of a fan. I just like to have an unblockable win condition in a lot of cases. My list is pretty much Nick's build except with 2 more lands instead of the ponders. Which is questionable/debatable I know but I just rather play more lands then more blue spells that can dig for lands in a pure control deck. However, that is just me and the deck seems fine as is for now with the ponders in my opinion.

I'd say the more lands you can play against both Maverick and RUG Delver Thresh the better your chances are from my experience. Considering, your a control deck and so the more lands you play the more strength you have to stay on top of the game at hand.

Edit: Cool, Tony Chu is currently X-1 right now after 7 rounds at the current SCG Legacy open with BUG Control(Pretty much Nick's build except a few different card choices here and there). I hope he will take down the tournament as I am predicting he will but we will have to see.

[Tom]

Yah I've been watching SCG live as well and saw him, and now Terry Mullins is playing in round 8 with BUG Control. Hopefully someone will get into top 8 or better and we will get to see the list.

EDIT: nevermind i just saw mullins play a goyf and a daze so i'm not sure this is the same deck. probably team america.

EDIT#2: yay Chu made top 8 so we can see his list later. he's going against storm in the quarterfinals, which doesn't seem so great though.

EDIT#3: I think he is in top 4 now

[DMel]

His run ended at top 4 sadly, but we had a decklist before that anyway due to the deck tech .

http://starcitygames.com/events/cove..._tony_chu.html

For what its worth, he lost to one of two U/R Delver decks that made it to the finals, and it was the one that won. The list seems pretty standard but I'm not an expert on the deck. It seems like the deck places well when played, which isn't often, but also that the few players that generally play it are pros or grinders, so its success is not terribly surprising or telling.

[Mia]

After talking with Kevin some on AIM, I think I should post my list. Here's what I'm playing at the moment:

Deck
4 Tarmogoyf 4 Dark Confidant 4 Snapcaster Mage 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 4 Force of Will 4 Brainstorm 3 Inquisition of Kozilek 3 Thoughtseize 3 Ghastly Demise 2 Smother 1 Maelstrom Pulse 1 Sylvan Library 1 Sensei's Divining Top	4 Polluted Delta 4 Misty Rainforest 2 Verdant Catacombs 4 Underground Sea 2 Tropical Island 2 Bayou 4 Wasteland 1 Riptide Laboratory	Sideboard 4 Pernicious Deed 4 Surgical Extraction 2 Nature's Claim 2 Spell Pierce 1 Life from the Loam 1 Ghastly Demise 1 Darkblast

[Kevinliu]

@Mia: Yeah, I think it's okay to post your list here since your deck isn't exactly BUG Thresh nor it's Team America. I think your deck is BUG control but it's the aggro-controllish version of this deck. I want to start a thread and write a primer on the aggro-control counterpart but my free time is very limited right now with college and etc.

Actually, now I remember seeing a couple placements of your variant of BUG control(With goyfs and snapcasters) floating around in the top 16 of a Legacy GP where Bant Stoneblade won that GP. I also have seen the deck making some impressive showings in the starcity games open series as well. I don't really have the data with me but I do remember the success of Aggro-Control BUG. It seems like the deck is Next Level Threshold but with black instead of red. I don't know, I might just start calling it Next Level BUG just to throw some identification out there. With that being said, I think all iterations of BUG are completely valid and viable right now.

The matchup against UR delver does seems pretty bad for BUG control but then again it seems bad for Team America as well. I personally think price of progress and sulfuric vortex are the main problems and that issue should be addressed with blue blasts in the board in my opinion. Especially since burn can run both of those red cards as well obviously.